Rowan Williams on Individualism

Rowan Williams opines in the Groan. He argues that we start our lives dependent on others. True, enough. But to argue, as he does, that we should be continuing to do so is absurd – that if we become individuals, we by default ignore the plight of others.

If you live in a world where everything encourages you to struggle for your own individual interest and success, you are encouraged to ignore the reality of other points of view – ultimately, to ignore the cost, or the pain of others.

Poppycock! There is no such encouragement. As individuals, we have individual responsibility to ourselves and for the effect our actions (or inactions) may have on others. A sense of personal responsibility is closely tied into ethics. At no time do I, as an individual, ignore the cost or pain of others and I resent this silly man’s assumption that individualism does this.

The result may be a world where people are articulate about their own feelings and pretty illiterate about those of others. An economic climate based on nothing but calculations of self-interest, fed by a distorted version of Darwinism, doesn’t build a habitat for human beings; at best it builds a sort of fortified box room for paranoiacs.

Idiocy of the first water. Economics has always been based on self-interest and that’s precisely how it should operate. I partake of a transaction because it is in my interest and the other party does likewise – we both come out as winners, having achieved our desired outcomes to our mutual satisfaction. If there was no self-interest at play, neither would bother. The baker would have no incentive to bake bread, the farmer no incentive to farm, and we would all have to do everything for ourselves rather than trade. The only distorted view of Darwinsim here is Williams’. But then, every representation of rambling, rhetoric from this absurd man is invariably risible rot.

We have, to some extent, looked into the abyss where individualism is concerned and we know that it won’t do.

No we haven’t. There is no abyss. Individuals have within them the capacity for good and evil – it is up to each to act according to their conscience. And, individuals are capable of philanthropy as much as they are capable of selfishness. It is foolish in the extreme to simply equate individualism with self-indulgence. But, then, this man is a collectivist, so I should expect no less.

This is a moment when every possible agency in civil society needs to reinforce its commitment to a world where thoughtful empathy is a normal aspect of the mature man or woman.

You don’t need to be the Borg to do that. Individual men and women do this all the time.

Williams then gets all religious – well, you’d expect that and I see no point pointing out that there is no evidence whatsoever that his God is committed to us or even exists. That’s for another time and another place.

Part of his point about politics resonates, though…

Politics left to managers, and economics left to brokers add up to a recipe for social and environmental chaos, and threaten the possibilities for full humanity.

The problem here is that economics is not left to brokers, is it? We have those damned politicians poking about in matters for which they are supremely unqualified and succeed only in making matters worse than if they had left well alone. Get the politicians out of things and they can only get better, frankly.

Once again Williams demonstrates that being highly educated and intelligent is no bar to rampant stupidity.